


the whole world would be open to them both

by elle_stone



Category: Cabin Pressure, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Ficlet, free write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 03:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_stone/pseuds/elle_stone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin and Molly visit an abandoned amusement park.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the whole world would be open to them both

**Author's Note:**

> Just a bit of writing practice for me. This was written in 20 minutes, with minimal editing, and no planning. My inspiration was a photo set from Tumblr, of an abandoned amusement park.

It’s Molly who insists they go. Martin would rather not, but he won’t admit that he finds it all a bit frightening, not just creepy, the way that Molly says it is. She has that secret small grin on her face that he loves, that makes him want to kiss the corners of her mouth. He can’t let her know that this eerie place, abandoned and overgrown, these man made mini wonders taken over now by wilderness, rollercoasters draped in vines, tunnels filled with old, crackling, orange leaves, everything so sturdy, surviving still, and so delicate, too, and covered over with graffiti from other illicit visitors, trespassers just like them—well, it sends shivers. But she’s tugging at his hand.

They enter in through wide open gates, rusted into stillness. He imagines one should creak in a stray gust of wind, but it doesn’t. Everything is still. Hot and humid, oppressive— _we should have come in the autumn_ , Molly says. Ah, well. He’s rather glad they didn’t, all the same.

She’s wearing a light, short, pale-coloured summer dress that twirls itself round her legs as she runs, and white trainers that will become smudged up with dirt before day’s end. The dress is patterned with over-large pink and orange flowers. He likes to trace their edges with his fingers, because she giggles when he does so, and she says it’s not fair, he’s being ticklish on purpose. He answers that it’s payback, for all those times she’s played connect-the-dots with his freckles.

She yells to him: _aren’t you coming?_

She jumps up on the creaky old tracks of an old rollercoaster—the cars are sitting down the way, stationary, spray-painted, once-bright colours dulled with dirt—and balances just so, one foot in front of the other on the rusty metal line. Her limbs seem unnaturally long and beautifully summer-tan. He doesn’t tan. He turns pink and then red, unless he’s careful, and even when he is, his nose still burns, inevitably, every year. Why does she look so young, now? He can’t stop watching her, and that is nothing new. 

The tracks continue on, round a bend and through a tunnel, where they disappear into some vague distance. The tunnel curves away from them; vines tangle themselves over it. Molly peers inside and tells him that this is fantastic; he just needs to see.

But his focus is drifting upwards now, to the very top of a Ferris wheel once painted in an array of rainbow shades, the top seats almost touching the sky. He wishes he could climb up the side of it and clamber into the chairs at the very peak. From there, the clouds would be all but in reach. She’d be by his side, of course, she always is, and he’d hold her close with one arm around her shoulders, and a light breeze would pass them by and break up this humid summer air, dusty and suffocating to those on the ground, tinged with decay. He’d find words for her that sounded just right. Everything he’d always meant to say would come to him easily. He would feel as light and as weightless as the air itself, free, and the whole world would be open to them both.


End file.
